1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a supervisory control apparatus which determines events that should be applied to the maintenance and operation of equipment or a system having a hierarchical structure among events that occur in the individual sections of the equipment or system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Nowadays, a variety of communication services are provided under the competition among a plurality of communication companies and the liberalization of the market and the number of terminals that use those communication services is increasing rapidly. Positive use of high-level information communication technologies enhances the added value of such terminals. Communication networks whose reliability and transmission quality are kept high and that can adapt to a variety of services in a flexible manner are demanded strongly.
FIG. 8 shows the configurations of a communication network and a supervisory control apparatus that is used for the maintenance and operation of the communication network.
As shown in FIG. 8, among the three communication ports of the supervisory control apparatus 50, a first communication port is connected to an alarm link 52 via an alarm collecting device 51. A second communication port of the supervisory control apparatus 50 is connected to data terminals 54-1 to 54-N via a LAN 53. A work slip reader 55 is connected to a third communication port of the supervisory control apparatus 50.
The supervisory control apparatus 50 is composed of a processor 58, a main storage 59, and a disc drive 60 that are connected to an internal bus 57 together with interfacing parts 56-1 to 56-3 that serve as the first to third communication ports, respectively.
Communication ports of respective node devices 62-A to 62-M that constitute the communication network 61 are connected to the alarm link 52.
As shown in FIG. 9, the communication network 61 is a set of the node devices 62-A to 62-M that are arranged in a hierarchical manner.
Identifiers xe2x80x9cXxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cYxe2x80x9d shown in FIG. 9 are identifiers of two paths X and Y that are formed by cascade-connected node devices 62-H to 62-K and cascade-connected node devices 62-L to 62-M, respectively, as shown in FIG. 8.
In the above conventional example, as shown in FIG. 10, a system configuration database 71 in which arrays of identifier(s) ID-I of one or a plurality of components that correspond to an identifier ID-u of each component (one of the nodes 62-A to 62-M and the paths X and Y) and that are located immediately under the component indicated by the identifier ID-u in the hierarchical structure of FIG. 9 are registered is stored as a file in advance in a particular storage area of the disc drive 60 of the supervisory control apparatus 50.
As shown in FIG. 11, a primary alarm register 72 that is an array of records each being a set of the following two fields is provided in advance in the main storage 59:
A V flag field which indicates whether the value of a detection alarm identifier (described below) that is contained in the same record is valid.
A detection alarm identifier field which is to contain a detection alarm identifier that is a pair of an item indicating an event such as a certain alarm and an identifier ID of a component that has been communicated via the alarm link 52.
As shown in FIG. 12, a work alarm determination table 73 that is an array of records each being a set of the following two fields is also provided in advance in the main storage
A work time slot field which indicates a time slot when an event such as an alarm may occur that is indicated by the value of a work alarm identifier field (described below) that is contained in the same record.
A work alarm identifier field which is to contain a work alarm identifier that is a pair of an item indicating the above event and an identifier ID of a component that has detected the event and about which the supervisory control apparatus 50 has been informed via the alarm link 52.
As shown in FIG. 13, a fault alarm determination table 74 that is an array of records described below is also provided in advance in the main storage 59:
A record which is to contain a repercussion alarm identifier that is a combination of an item and an identifier ID that were mentioned above. The repercussion identifier indicates an event that corresponds to an individual value the above-mentioned detection alarm identifier can have and that may be recognized by a lower-rank component as an event indicated by that detection alarm identifier spreads.
As shown in FIG. 14, a secondary alarm register 75 that is a set of records each of which is to contain a detection alarm identifier that is a pair of an item indicating an event such as a failure or a fault that has truly occurred and an identifier ID indicating a component that has detected the event and about which the supervisory control apparatus 50 has been informed via the alarm link 52 is also provided in advance in the main storage 59.
When receiving information that has been read from a work slip via the work slip reader 55 and supplied via the interfacing part 56-3, the processor 58 acquires a work time slot, one of the nodes 62-A to 62-M and the paths X and Y on which the work should be done (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cwork subjectxe2x80x9d), and an item indicating an event such as an alarm that may occur during the work all of which are included in the received information.
The processor 58 determines, under predetermined storage management, an empty record among the records of the work alarm determination table 73 and registers the above combination of the work time slot, an identifier of the work subject, and the item in the work time slot field, the work alarm identifier field of the empty record.
Regarding, as an identifier ID-u (described above), the identifier indicating the work subject as an individual component, the processor 58 acquires identifiers ID-I of all the sub-components that are registered in the system configuration database 71 as corresponding to the identifier ID-u and excludes redundant ones among the identifiers ID-I.
The processor 58 sequentially generates repercussion alarm identifiers that are combinations of the remaining identifiers ID-I and the item.
The processor 58 determines empty record among the records of the fault alarm determination table 74 under predetermined storage management, and stores the generated repercussion alarm identifiers in the empty record.
The processor 58 cooperates with the nodes 62-A to 62-M via the alarm collecting device 51 and the alarm link 52, and thereby acquires a message indicating an event such as an alarm of the nodes 62-A to 62-M upon its reception.
Further, the processor 58 stores alarm information that has been received as such a message in the detection alarm identifier field of an empty record of the primary alarm register 72 after converting it into information that complies with the format of the detection alarm identifier field, and sets the value of the V flag field of this record to xe2x80x9c1.xe2x80x9d
Therefore, all messages that have been collected from the nodes 62-A to 62-M are first stored in the primary alarm register 72.
The processor 58 performs the following operations (1) and (2):
(1) Determines a particular record whose V flag field has a value xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d and that satisfies the following condition among the records of the primary alarm register 72:
The value of the detection alarm identifier field is the same as the value of the work alarm identifier field of a record whose value of work time slot field corresponds the present time among the records of the work alarm determination table 73.
(2) Updates the value of the V flag field of the thus-determined particular record to xe2x80x9c0.xe2x80x9d
Therefore, the values of the V flag fields of only records, among the records of the primary alarm register 72, whose detection alarm identifiers have values not corresponding to any event such as a failure or fault that has occurred directly in association with predetermined work whose work slip was given in advance and that relates to maintenance or operation are kept at xe2x80x9c1.xe2x80x9d
The processor 58 also performs the following operations (a) and (b):
(a) Acquires the repercussion alarm identifier that is registered in the record, among the records of the fault alarm determination table 74, corresponding to the detection alarm identifier field of the particular record the value of whose V flag field has been updated to xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d in the above-described manner.
(b) Updates the value of the V flag field of a record that satisfies both of the following conditions among the records of the primary alarm register 72, to xe2x80x9c0xe2x80x9d:
The value of the V flag field is equal to xe2x80x9c1.xe2x80x9d
The value of the detection alarm identifier is equal to the value of the repercussion alarm identifier thus acquired.
Therefore, among the records of the primary alarm register 72, the values of the V flag fields of only records whose detection alarm identifiers have values not corresponding to any event such as a failure or fault that has occurred directly in association with predetermined work whose work slip was given in advance and that relates to maintenance or operation or any event that has occurred as a result of spread of an event that occurred in association with work that was done on a higher-rank component (a node device or the like) are kept at xe2x80x9c1.xe2x80x9d
Further, the processor 58 writes, to empty records of the secondary alarm register 75, the values of the detection alarm identifiers of only records whose V flag fields have a value xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d among the records of the primary alarm register 72, and performs predetermined operations that are suitable for events such as faults that are indicated by those detection alarm identifiers.
That is, an event such as a failure or fault that has been caused by and has occurred during work that has been done for maintenance or operation is excluded from subjects of a supervisory control with high accuracy.
Therefore, useless fault processing is prevented from being activated, a supervisory control is continued in a stable manner, and the running cost is reduced.
Incidentally, in the above conventional example, in general, the throughputs that are necessary for the generation of the work alarm determination table 73 and the fault alarm determination table 74, respectively, are higher when the amount of information registered in the system configuration database 71 is larger or the configuration of the communication network 61 is more complex.
However, nowadays, these throughputs are still increasing under circumstances that diversification of communication services provided by communication networks and quick adaptation (e.g., expansion or relocation of equipment) to a change in the forms of those communication services are strongly desired.
So that a failure, a fault, or the like that has occurred during work and a failure, a fault, or the like that has occurred secondarily as the former failure, fault, or the like spreads are determined and excluded properly from subjects of fault processing even under the above circumstances, the work alarm determination table 73 and the fault alarm determination table 74 should be subjected to complex, high-throughput logical operations and set operations.
However, the complication of those logical operations and set operations and the increase of the throughputs prevent change of the form and period of work that should be performed flexibly in maintenance or operation.
As a result, in the conventional example, the response speed of a supervisory control is not sufficiently high.
Nowadays, in a lot of communication systems, communication channels such as paths are logically formed on physical resources.
Therefore, a technique capable of determining, efficiently and with high accuracy, the source of a failure, a fault, or the like occurred during work even when the failure, fault, or the like has spread to such a path or the like is strongly required.
An object of the invention is to provide a supervisory control apparatus capable of increasing the efficiency and the flexibility of supervisory control without altering the hardware configuration.
Another object of the invention is to adapt flexibly and inexpensively to a variety of requirements relating to the configuration, state of operation, operation environment, and maintenance and operation of a system or equipment, which are subjects of supervisory control, and to highly keep the total performance, reliability, and quality of service.
Another object of the invention is to make the software simpler and smaller in scale and to enable more efficient supervisory control and power saving of work compared to those of the conventional art.
Another object of the invention is to prevent, efficiently and with high accuracy, spread of an event occurred in a certain component to a lower-rank component even when attributes of the event are not necessarily known or may vary in a variety of manners.
Still another object of the invention is to realize a quick and highly accurate identification of a component where an event occurred first, even when the event that occurred in a certain component has spread to its lower-rank component.
Another object of the invention is to realize a quick and highly accurate identification of a higher-rank component such as a transmission channel where a failure or fault occurred first, even for a component such as a communication channel that is not constituted as physical hardware capable of recognizing the failure or fault that has spread to the communication channel itself.
Still another object of the invention is to adapt to a variety of needs relating to the supervisory control on the system without complicating the configuration unduly or increasing the scale.
Another object of the invention is to quickly and properly inform the operating party or users of the system where a failure or fault has already occurred about an estimated time required for recovery from the failure or fault.
Still another object of the invention is to prevent a problem that the efficiency of a supervisory control decreases or the procedure of process becomes complex due to spread of an event occurred in a higher-rank component to its lower-rank component.
Another object of the invention is to automatically and continuously control spread of an event that occurred in a higher-rank component to a lower-rank component without complicating the structure of operation subjects, unduly increasing the amount of information of the operation subjects, or complicating the procedure of operations.
The above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which immediately lower-rank components to which an event occurred in each of a plurality of components may spread are registered in advance. A particular status that an event occurred in a higher-rank component has spread to all lower-rank components is individually registered accordingly, based on an iterative algorithm. An event occurred in a component where such a particular status is registered is negated.
In this supervisory control apparatus, all lower-rank components to which an event that occurred in a higher-rank component may spread are identified one after another during the process of registering the particular status as described above, the components being in the system having a hierarchical structure.
The above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which one or both of a failure that may occur in each component and a variation in a state of operation that may occur in each component according to what work may be done is/are the already described events.
In this supervisory control apparatus, for any component of the system as a subject of supervisory control, the spread of a failure or fault occurred in a higher-rank component is efficiently prevented with high accuracy.
Further, the above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which an event occurred in each component is individually recognized as a combination of the event and attributes of the event.
In this supervisory control apparatus, an event occurred in a certain component of the system as a subject of supervisory control is identified reliably, even when attributes of the event at the time are not necessarily known or may vary in a variety of manners.
The above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which a higher-rank component where an event that has spread to a lower-rank component actually occurred is recognized automatically and is registered correspondingly to the lower-rank component.
In this supervisory control apparatus, a higher-rank component where an event occurred can be quickly identified with high accuracy as long as a lower-rank component to which the event has spread can be recognized.
Further, the above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which the predetermined system is constituted as a communication system, and part of the plurality of components are constituted as communication channels that are formed logically on physical transmission channels.
In this supervisory control apparatus, a higher-rank component where an event that has spread to a communication channel actually occurred can be quickly identified with high accuracy, even when the communication channel is intangible.
The above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which unique information that corresponds to all combinations of events that may occur in each component and attributes of the events is registered in advance, and unique information corresponding to a combination of an event that has spread physically from a higher-rank component and attributes of the event is acquired when necessary.
In this supervisory control apparatus, the unique information described above is defined uniquely according to an event that may occur in the plurality of components and attributes of the event, and can be quickly obtained with high accuracy as long as the event and the attributes are identified.
Further, the above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which the unique information described above corresponds to a combination of each failure that may occur as an event in each component and attributes of the failure, and is provided as a recovery time from the failure.
In this supervisory control apparatus, a recovery time can be obtained when a failure or fault occurred in a higher-rank component spreads physically. The recovery time can thus be referred to efficiently, without performing complex process during a supervisory control.
The above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which conditions for permitting an event to spread to a lower-rank component are registered in advance for respective combinations of the plurality of components and events that may occur individually in the plurality of components, and any of the events is negated only when such a condition is satisfied.
In this supervisory control apparatus, an event that occurred in any component is negated unless the above-mentioned condition is satisfied, and hence is prevented from spreading to its lower-rank component.
Further, the above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which conditions for permitting an event to spread to a lower-rank component are registered in advance for respective combinations of the plurality of components and events that may occur individually in the plurality of components, and operation of a lower-rank component to which any event spreads is permitted only when such a condition is satisfied.
In this supervisory control apparatus, an event that occurred in any component is negated unless the above-mentioned condition is satisfied, and hence is prevented from spreading to its lower-rank component.
The above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus judging whether an event that spread to a component in which any condition satisfied in advance has disappeared or not, and recognizing a condition for which a result of the judgment is false as still being satisfied for a predetermined time.
In this supervisory control apparatus, even when a certain condition that has been satisfied in advance comes not to be satisfied, the event mentioned above is negated as an event that has not occurred during the predetermined time.
Further, the above objects are achieved by providing a supervisory control apparatus in which the process regarding a condition satisfied in advance as still being satisfied during the predetermined time is repeated the predetermined number of times.
In this supervisory control apparatus, even when a certain condition that has been satisfied in advance comes not to be satisfied, an event that forms a combination with the condition is negated as an event that has not occurred since the condition comes not to be satisfied to a time equal to a product obtained by multiplying the above predetermined time by the predetermined number of times.